The first 4 shipments  of  2100 direct and OQRS QSL cards were  mailed out today,  Jan 24^th. Here is a picture of 2 of the shipments of QSL cards heading to their new homes. We are working on the remaining 1600 direct QSL cards and should have them all mailed out by end of month.  Once we have shipped out the remaining direct QSL cards, our next focus will be broken or missing QSO(s). Thanks again for your patience.

The VK9MA card was sent to the printing company Jan 11th . We are expecting the cards to be delivered around Jan 22nd, and we will be mailing out the direct cards immediately afterwards.

They have packed up and are homeward bound to Port Douglas.  It appears they ended up with a little over 43K QSO.  Will find out the correct total when they arrive home.  They were very tired by the end.  Congrats on a job well done guys. You can see all the statistics on Club Log.  Til the next trip  73 Mike K4PI

They left 3 people on the island tonight and will be finishing the packing today.  Every one is exhausted and ready to head home.

They will be tearing down the 160 setup after dawn.  They require 30 Zodiac trips to get all the equipment back to the boat.  They will continue on the higher bands but condx are near impossible above 20 M..  Have not seen them make it to the EC on 17 M and up in the last few days.  They were there we just could not hear them.

One last time,  OC and AF call anytime,  when CQ NA that also means SA.

On the low bands they are suffering severe QRN from storms over the Pacific toward NA.

They have been doing some FT8 but make sure you have the very latest WSJT-X dated Oct 27 2017.  Do not use and Ver with rc1 or rc2.  If you are hearing them pick a clear offset and call.  If they hear you they will eventually move to your offset and finish the QSO.

Coming up in about 8 hours which will be their sunset,  0745 GMT, will be the last night for 160 M.  They will alternate FT8 and CW depending on what they can hear.  They had in operation yesterday to USA on 160 two rx antenna in diversity mode but it appears that storms on the Pacific are causing so much noise they cant hear through them.  It is quieter toward EU. Dietmar, DL3DXX is there on 160 a lot and he is a world class 160 DXpeditioner so you know he is doing everything he can to pull out stations.

They will also on 80 do CW and FT8.  Hoping for more 40 SSB and possibly more 30 RTTY.

They will start some teardown after sunrise tomorrow but try and keep as many stations going as possible until departure on the 16th.

They had a glitch in the logging program which prevented upload to Club Log today but that is fixed now and Clublog is up to date.  They are at around 40 K QSO.

Band conditions have been awful.  They said they were calling most all day SSB until they were blue in the face on the higher bands and no one coming back.

More input, tonight as previous message said they will be 160 CW with possible check of FT8 on occasion.  Also 80 CW, 40 SSB and 30 RTTY.

They say just two more nights on 160 before taking the Titanex down.  That is tonight, 11/13  starting sometime after around 0745 their sunset and the following night.  They will be doing more FT8 which is working very well on 160 M.   If you see them there just move to some unused frequency and call .  If they see you they will eventually move to your frequency to complete the QSO.  They will be sending RR73 for TX 4 I would insure you have the latest download of WSJT-X which will interpret that correctly.

They depart on the 16 th and will try to keep at least 2 stations on through the 15 th.

They have been adding additional receiving antennas for the low bands.  They plan on putting on a big push tonight on 160, 80 and 40.

They are having problems with over the horizon radar on 80 M.  They will use 3505 as a secondary frequency if 3525 gets covered.  They lost a couple of power supplies.  The Honda generators have become a noise source but they were able to move them far enough away to correct them.